With the development of the Internet, in concert with other types of cross-border interaction in today's global economy, there has been increased demand for remote access to reliable and searchable sources of information relating to specific esoteric subject areas in specific fields of knowledge such as law, medicine, business, economics, and the like. Users look for such information to be presented in a structured manner that facilitates rapid and reliable comprehension of complex concepts and allows for rapid, highly accurate access to supporting information in order to better research and understand a particular subject.
Given its qualitative nature, the organisation of such information requires the expertise of persons knowledgeable in the specific subject area. Users, who may be well versed in a particular field of knowledge but not necessarily in computer systems and associated data models, must be able to easily and flexibly interact with the data storage, management, and access systems in order to impart their knowledge effectively while allowing others to interact with a system that enables them to easily maintain and comprehend the perpetual evolution of that knowledge in various emerging contexts.
Subject areas, the concepts contained therein, and the relationships between them range from the simple to the very complex and are highly variable. Many such relationships can be described only qualitatively and therefore are not susceptible to automatic recognition by a computer system. Examples of such relationships would be similar or analogous topics, historical relevance, and indirect references.
Many subject areas are knowledge-based systems that rely on previously known information for the incremental creation of new information. In such areas, information within a particular subject area is highly related to the context to which it relates. In many areas of knowledge or research, the context in which the source of information exists may be as or more important than the information itself. Without quick and easy access to related information that assists in defining its context, the full realisation of the meaning of particular information may not be possible.
For example, in international law, the proper understanding of an international treaty depends not only on some pre-existing knowledge of international law, but also on other related treaties and rules of international law (such as the rules of treaty interpretation) as well as to how courts, tribunals and other bodies have interpreted concepts and principles that may not be expressly stated in the text of the treaty itself.
Likewise, context is highly significant to medical diagnosis. Access to physiological and anatomical background information, as well as to ongoing pharmaceutical information and research into other forms of treatment results is often necessary for the correct diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.
Information related to a particular subject area may also exist in different formats, some of which are not readily accessed for searching and consultation. Examples of such formats include unpublicised or hard to find paper-based texts and papers, computer-based scanned image files of text documents, computer-based read-only document files (such as the common proprietary PDF format) and internet-based files (e.g., HTML).
It has heretofore not been cost-effective to implement systems for inputting and accessing information sources pertaining to given subjects. An implementation of network-based systems that facilitate the locating, addition, and annotation of information sources that reduces the time and effort of data input has long been sought. Furthermore, current methods of database population and implementation for the data input of interrelated documents has resulted in very wide, linear table structures. This, in turn, has slowed database queries and has limited the criteria of relationships between different information sources and structures while placing a considerable strain on database resources (e.g. servers, software, networks) when performing queries that are meant to associate and index, or conversely, locate and display sought information.
Some current methods provide solutions to the demand for access to remotely located and related information by making electronic copies of documents pertaining to a given subject available over the internet by way of internet searching services and hosted web sites providing hyperlinks to electronic copies of documents. These methods are however not particularly efficient for finding reliable sources of information and creating linkage between related sources, nor do they provide a particular means for creating efficient database methods for inputting and accessing those sources that remain fast and reliable. It is true that some publicly available web sites allow users to view documents by clicking on a specific hyperlink, but as the links or link descriptors may or may not give accurate or useful descriptions of the information source, this solution makes the finding of useful information extremely time-consuming. Further, searches are often fruitless as the user must depend on unrelated and potentially unreliable third parties to make information available and provide appropriate descriptions of the available material. Restrictions on data access or data acquisition (i.e. downloading), whether from the content provider or the internet service provider, makes obtaining information from documentary sources impracticable.
Therefore, there is a need for a new system and method for inputting, managing and/or providing access to interrelated sources of information that overcomes some of the drawbacks of known systems.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.